Bass as a by-catch?

Chats with our local "characters" around the marina provide some interesting stories which can evolve into new ideas. Apparently, a Chinese man was fishing rather unconventionally nearby (and I won't incriminate him by saying where), using a shad. Now everybody knows that shads are used for "hopping" on rough ground or wrecks well offshore, and that's the way it is. This chap didn't know that and used a shad as a normal lure (just as they use shads elsewhere in the world actually) - and caught two very nice bass. My informant tagged a shad onto the bottom of his mackerel trace and guess what he started catching too. So when I went out on Saturday and was kept inshore by the wind, I tied a 4 inch curly tail shad on a short trace below the weight of my mackerel trace. I found that if I made the movements of the feathers more gentle than usual the shad did not tangle and in fact swam pretty well. And, yes I did. Not as big as the fellow below caught recently, but nice to catch all the same.